


A Lesson (Probably) Learned

by elliebells



Category: Practical Magic (1998)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 21:48:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5471882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elliebells/pseuds/elliebells
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a certain amount of intuition that comes with being an Owens woman, or a witch of any sort. But it's more than just knowing who's on the other end of the ringing phone, or knowing just where the newest scrape or bruise is, and what will help it best. It's knowing when your loved ones, your sisters and nieces and daughters, are in danger. It's knowing that somewhere, right now, she's asking for your help.<br/>Or knowing when she needed your help, and didn't seek it.<br/>And now, well now there's a corpse growing roses in your front yard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Lesson (Probably) Learned

**Author's Note:**

  * For [toast_ears](https://archiveofourown.org/users/toast_ears/gifts).



"They've really done it this time, Jet."  
"I know."  
There's a certain amount of intuition that comes with being an Owens woman, or a witch of any sort. But it's more than just knowing who's on the other end of the ringing phone, or knowing just where the newest scrape or bruise is, and what will help it best. It's knowing when your loved ones, your sisters and nieces and daughters, are in danger. It's knowing that somewhere, right now, she's asking for your help.  
Or knowing when she needed your help, and didn't seek it.   
And now, well now there's a corpse growing roses in your front yard.

Of course, Frances and Jet didn't really know what was happening until the midnight margaritas came around, but it suddenly all made sense.  
"Leaving like this is a harsh lesson," Jet whispered to her as they descended the stairs.  
"A lesson they must learn on their own."   
"But what about the little ones?"   
"Not to worry, Jetty. A good piece of Maria's hanging rope will protect them," Frances murmured back, pulling her to a stop. She opened the trunk of their most sacred and important items, and began unravelling the rope carefully, pulling off two thin segments. Just as quietly, but a little more quickly, they climbed the stairs back to the girls' room. Frances inclined her head to the other side of the bed, motioning for Jet to go to Kylie.  
"Girls, we've brought you something-"  
"But you have to promise us you won't take them off, not until we come home."  
"We'll only be gone a short while, okay?"  
After a moment of sleepy silence, Frances nudged Antonia gently. "Do you hear us?" She recieved a gentle chorus of assent from both of them.  
"Okay," Frances told them, leaning in to kiss Antonia softly on the forehead, knowing Jet was doing the same without looking at her.  
"Love you," Antonia mumbled in her direction.  
"Love you too, sweetheart." 

They were gone before the sun even thought about coming up.   
"Franny, are you absolutely sure we are doing the right thing?"  
"They will solve this on their own. We can't fix everything for them, Jet, you know that. We won't always be here. Besides, you saw the signs. They'll have help soon enough, even if they don't know it."

Now, despite knowing what happens when women go to the Owens sisters (the elder ones) to find solutions for their problems- namely, problems with their love lives- despite knowing the consequences, they still do it. Frances and Jet had to make money somehow, and frankly, it amused them to see the reactions of the townspeople. ("Honestly, Franny, they think we're killing children over here!") So while Sally and Gillian worked out their problem that they had supposedly solved, the aunts went to gather some supplies. 

When the girls were younger, they witnessed a love spell. Jet meant it when she told Ellen to be careful what she wished for. Of course, neither of them could have foreseen what was going to happen to Ellen- but they knew that anything could go wrong. The sacrifice of any living thing is only used in darker spells, and it never failed to surpise Jet how none of these women could understand that.  
Nevertheless, these women came to them, despite Ellen's near-fatal encounter with her "beloved;" despite Leigh's before that; despite the fact that Anna, before her, was still in jail. And all these birds had to come from somewhere.  
This trip was to get their doves. There was a farm, just a state over, run by a very kind couple willing to overlook Jet and Frances' eccentricity. Every couple of years, the sisters would show up to buy a couple of birds to raise, maybe five or six. These birds would most certainly nest multiple times and leave them with more doves to care for.   
Just because they were willing to sacrifice animals in the name of the craft does not mean they enjoyed it. Jet had always been very insistent that they raise the birds themselves, show them love and care and give them the best life possible.

They'd been gone about a week, enjoying their brief and unexpected vacation, when Jet placed her hand suddenly on Jet's arm and looked at her. "Franny, they need us. They don't need to learn their lesson, they need us. Right now!"  
"Perhaps you're right," she sighed back. "Perhaps you're right."

Gillian was on the floor when they walked through the door, Sally pressed against a wall looking like she was going to flee or knock someone's lights out.   
"Oh, dear. It seems we've not arrived in the nick of time," Jet said, putting her case on the ground.  
"I see our instincts are getting a little rusty," Frances told her.   
While Sally took Gillian to the next room and restrained her in a chair, Frances whispered to Jet, "This is going to make or break us, Jetty, you know that, right?"  
"Sally is strong, and so is Gillian. We will make it through this."  
Frances went to herd the girls back to their room for the time being while Jet trailed after Sally, to Gillian's side.  
"He's squatting inside her like a toad," she said disdainfully. "And this is what comes from dabbling," she added, then turned to meet Sally's eyes. "You can't practice witchcraft while you look down your nose at it."  
"I know, I know," Sally moaned, holding a pillow over her face as she leaned back into the couch. She pulled it off and said, "just tell me what you want me to do and I'll do it."   
"We have to banish him," Frances told her, dabbing blood and sweating off of Gillian's pale, trembling face.  
"We have to force his spirit back into the grave," Jet clarified, standing from her place checking Gillian's bindings.  
"We need a full coven."  
"Nine women," Jet mused. "Twelve is better."  
Turning to look at Sally, Frances asker her, off-handedly, "do you have any friends?"

The rest of the night flew by. Sally activated her phone tree, and emergency way of contacting all the parents of the children her girls went to school with, and got the jealous, angry women of her town to help. All she did was admit outright that she was a witch. The girls she worked with were ecstatic to hear it, but the other women possibly even more so. Brooms in hand, they came flooding into the Owens' house.  
Meanwhile, the aunts cooked a very nasty stew that would help trap Jimmy back in his grave, permanently. Antonia and Kylie helped to clear the drawing room of anything except the candles for the ritual, the chair Gillian was in, and the place their circle would surround her.  
The ritual was fairly quick, though emotionally exhausting. Sally invoked her blood bond with Gillian- both her familial and one she and Gillian had chosen the night Gilly ran off. In this moment, she was cleansed and Maria's curse was broken. Shortly after, the shell-shocked but still excited women swept the ashes that were Jimmy Angelov into the yard, and together they poured the aunts horrible mix onto him. 

The aunts didn't get their birds like they had planned, but honestly, they got something much, much better.


End file.
